Well, this is a surprise. Several websites have a preview up of Apple's next Mac OS X release - it's called Mountain Lion, and continues the trend of bringing over functionality from iOS to Mac OS X. Lots of cool stuff in here we've all seen before on iPhones and iPads, including one very, very controversial feature: Gatekeeper. Starting with Mac OS X 10.8, Apple's desktop operating system will be restricted to Mac App Store and Apple-signed applications by default (with an opt-out switch), following in Windows 8's footsteps.

In Mac OS X 10.9, the master switch and force-install will be ever harder to find or relegated to CLI commands - after which it is removed completely. Both Windows and Mac OS X will move towards a fully curated environment, in a nice, step-by-step manner to ease us into the idea of no longer having ownership of our machines.

As Lorelai Gilmore explains about how her dog is okay with being on a leash as long as the dog doesn't actually see the leash being put on him: "He's totally fine having his personal freedom slowly stripped away, as long as he's completely unaware that it's happening. Just like a true American."

your entire life has lead up to this moment thom. you hit me in the gut and it hurt. golf clap.

what kind of irony is it that just as open source software has become more common and higher quality than ever, closed systems are getting even more closed? I don't know what to make of it. I knew computers would become cheaper and commoditized, but I wasn't planning on them becoming microwaves.